Air Force sergeant first casualty in anti-terrorism military effort

MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla.  An Air Force sergeant was killed in a heavy equipment accident in the Arabian Peninsula, becoming the first announced death in Operation Enduring Freedom, military officials said Thursday.

Master Sgt. Evander Earl Andrews, who died Wednesday, was assigned to the 366th Civil Engineer Squadron at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho. He was originally from Maine, the base said, but no details were immediately available.

Lt. Col. Dave Lapan, a defense department spokesman at MacDill, said Andrews was at a "forward deployed location" supporting the campaign when the incident happened. He gave no details, but Tech. Sgt. Terry Nelson of the Mountain Home base said he was killed in the northern part of the Arabian Peninsula. That part of the peninsula includes such countries as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

A woman who answered the telephone Thursday morning at the Andrews home in Mountain Home said Andrews' wife, Judy, was not saying anything but would be meeting with her minister and might have something to say later. The woman did not identify herself.

In addition to Andrews, a soldier was seriously injured Wednesday in Turkey after being trapped between two trucks, military officials said.

Officials did not disclose the soldier's name, the extent of his injuries or the exact location of the accident.

He was airlifted to the military hospital in Germany.

"U.S. medical personnel on the scene performed initial lifesaving care," after which the soldier was taken to a U.S. base in Incirlik, Turkey, said Maj. Brad Lowell, a U.S. Central Command spokesman at MacDill.

The soldier was in serious but stable condition Thursday at the U.S. military's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, officials said.